“One of our clients asked us to design a wild game menu for the party he is hosting for about 50 friends on Super Bowl Sunday,” says Epicurean Catering president Larry DiPasquale. “It’s really going to be cool.”

Some of the highlights: The signature cocktail will be Prosecco that flows down a carved-ice luge, topped with a replica of the Broncos logo, into glasses filled with a scoop of home-made orange sherbet. Guests can sip other drinks through “straws” fashioned from blue and orange licorice sticks.

Servers will be outfitted in referee costumes to supervise food stations where the choices will include Colorado strip loin steak accompanied by orange horseradish; wild-game sausage with honey that has been tinted blue and orange; smoked Colorado trout; and hummus with an orange hue that will come from carrots.

Four Super Bowl parties being catered by Epicurean will have a commemorative cake to serve for dessert. Designed by company baker Nikki Olst, the sheet cakes will be similar to the ones made for several suite-holders at the AFC championship game. The icing will have a likeness of a horse — presumably team mascot Thunder — bucking in the direction of the Seattle Seahawks‘ mascot or logo.

For one of their parties, owner/CEO Riccardo Mazzeo will have staff on site to prepare fish, pork and chicken street tacos and flat-bread pizza, with a buffet featuring pork belly and barbecued chicken sliders.

Meanwhile, trips to the Super Bowl and autographed Peyton Manning jerseys are feeding the coffers of some Denver nonprofits.

On Jan. 26, at a gala that celebrated Marion Downs’ 100th birthday and raised $1.5 million for the Marion Downs Hearing Center Foundation, Boettcher Foundation president Tim Schultz and his wife, Debbie Jessup, paid $15,000 for a package that is giving them two end-zone tickets at MetLife Stadium, a three-night stay at the Crown Plaza Times Square Hotel and two first-class, round-trip tickets on Delta Airlines. Also at that event, Dr. Richard Krugman, dean of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, paid $4,000 for a No. 18 jersey autographed by quarterback Peyton Manning.

And, at a Jan. 25 fundraiser put on by St. Anthony Hospital, Dr. Matt Reveille of Rocky Mountain Gastroenterology placed the $4,200 winning bid for a framed and autographed Manning jersey. The glass of the frame broke during auction set-up, prompting Reveille to say he will wear the jersey on game day, then have it reframed to donate back to the hospital to be auctioned again.

Joanne Davidson was The Denver Post's society editor for 29 years before retiring in July 2015. She quickly discovered she wasn't ready for the rocking chair, so she dusted off her evening gowns and returned to the paper as a freelance reporter, writing feature stories and covering charitable fundraising events in the metro area.

More in Sports

Broncos general manager John Elway was reminded of the nice weather, of the fun memories he had some 13 miles west in Palo Alto in college and of course the ones he experienced here in Santa Clara back in 2016.

A tangled mess at Coors Field unraveled early Thursday afternoon as rookie right-hander Jeff Hoffman craned his neck to see home run after home run leave the yard. Before the end, it devolved into a dilemma.